Name: Harrison Shames Course: Music Appreciation Date: November 17th, 2011 Concert: Rollins College Orchestra (October

27th, 2011) Type of concert: Symphony orchestra General reaction: The hall was beautiful and cleanJohn Tiedtke Concert Hall-and with its wonderful acoustics. The orchestra was not what I expected size wise who I was very intrigued to hear how they sounded.

The concert consisted of historical music with pieces by Haydn and Brahms, as well as a piece by Respighi, whose music differed from piece to piece. All the music at the concert was absolute music. The conductor was Dr. John V. Sinclair. The orchestra only had one percussionist so all the parts could not be played, and there was also no tuba player which was very noticeable, being a tuba player myself. When I arrived at the concert I had missed the first piece played, which was the Academic Festival Overture Op. 80 by Brahms. Once we got into the auditorium and settled we first started off by listening to Symphony No.102 (The Londoner) by Haydn. After researching I found out the piece was scored for two flutes, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings. Not having a tuba in the group now made sense to me since there was no need for a tuba player. The first movement was Largo-Vivace. I believe this movement did not fit the groups overall sound very well. The movement was very open to interpretation, and I liked to conductors tempo and overall emotion, but the dynamics and intonation as a group were very poor. Many of the sections were exposed and only a couple instruments would play at a time. When this would happen the woodwind to string intonation was very off and noticeable. Another problem I had was the main melody was very hard to find as well as the moving line in general. There would be a couple times when the piece had a moving line in the bassoons or flutes but the strings were quick to cover it up. My assumption is that they were just to careless to know where the moving melodic line is and need to figure it out, since theyre part was of no interest as the other was going on. The next movement, Adagio, basically fit in the same category as the first. Yes adagio means slow and stately, but you have as much freedom within a piece as you want. I felt that they did the small, expected things as a group, but what separated them from the rest? In this movement I heard nothing. Movement three (Menuetto-Allegro) and four (Finale-Presto) definitely played to the groups strength. There were a lot of quick moving lines in the strings and especially the violins which were articulated nicely. As a whole the violins were easily the strongest section, whether it come to sheer numbers, volume, or playing ability. The only problem I had with these two movements has to be tempo. You could really see the conductor fighting with the orchestra to increase tempo. The reason for this problem was not him but every single player had their face glued to their music stand. Overall the piece was performed nicely but it is not one of my favorites by any means.

The next piece performed was Antiche danze ed arie per liuto Suite 1 by Respighi. My overall reaction to the piece was boring. The tempo was very moderate in my opinion throughout. Again I feel like no other section besides the strings was featured. I do not know for a fact, but just by looking and hearing the program I can assume the conductor was a string player. There overall timbre, articulation, and musical expression was way beyond the other sections, partially because I believe he spent more time working with them than any other section. The piece seemed to have better intonation then the prior, but it was the same problems for the most part. Dynamics and style really was the difference between the piece being performed ok or very nice.
Overall Performance: After

going to the Concert at Rollins I will probably not attend anymore at the school. I am personally a brass guy and after hearing the group as a whole I can tell it is a pretty weak section. The overall program was done ok and to be honest I was expecting a little more.